Credit Rating

Auto leasing deals abound these days, with offers that often seem too good to be true. How about a well-equipped Honda Accord for $250 a month with no down payment or any other drive-off fees? Or better yet, $199 a month for a Chevrolet Malibu? So, what's the catch? There isn't any if you know what you're getting into. There are always details. You need top-tier credit to qualify. You pay a penalty if you turn that Honda in with more than 36,000 miles. And the payment is not $250 a month because of that little matter of tax. It is more like $275, depending on where you live.

Federal and state prosecutors sued the credit rating agency Standard & Poor's this week for allegedly defrauding investors by giving inflated ratings to complex mortgage-backed securities that proved all but worthless after the housing bubble burst. The cases raise difficult questions about the freedom to express an opinion without being held liable if it's wrong. Nevertheless, it's worth exploring whether S&P and its rivals deliberately soft-pedaled how risky those securities were in order to boost their bottom lines.

Los Angeles police will not pursue through the courts scores of motorists with unpaid tickets from the city's defunct red-light camera program. The city Police Commission voted this week to end its contract with the company that operated L.A.'s cameras until they were shut off last summer. And authorities are now planning to reassign a small group of officers who regularly appeared in court to testify in contested photo enforcement cases. With the cancellation of the contract, officers will no longer have easy access to the photo and video evidence that courts require.

As the housing bubble was bursting in 2007, an analyst at credit rating firm Standard & Poor's made light of the situation with a song. He went from office to office serenading co-workers with his ode to America's deepening real estate crisis. "Strong market is now much weaker, subprime is boi-ling o-ver, bringing down the house," the analyst sang to the tune of the Talking Head's "Burning Down the House. " The scene was among the details - some meant to be embarrassing - released in government lawsuits against the world's biggest credit rating firm.

Car dealers have found a new way to profit from people with money trouble: leasing them hand-me-down vehicles. The deals are pitched to customers as the cheapest way to drive a used car off the lot, with the added benefit of an easy escape for those who can't keep up with the payments. Few customers are told about the advantages on the other side of the trade. Leases can allow dealerships to sidestep interest rate caps, and there are fewer financial disclosures rules than with a conventional car loan.

Ford Motor Co. is knocking on the door of an investment-grade corporate credit rating, which would help slice the automaker's borrowing costs. Standard & Poor's Ratings Services raised its corporate credit rating on Ford Motor Co. and Ford Motor Credit Co., the automaker's lending arm, to BB+ from BB-. That puts the company just one notch below an investment-grade rating, which is an important measure of corporate health and would reduce the automaker's...

The decision by credit rating firm Standard & Poor's late Friday to cut the United States' rating to AA+ from AAA has stoked fears of more turmoil in financial markets, which already are on edge over the weakening global economy. Here's a look at what S&P's move means, and the potential effects on interest rates and across the markets. What does the new rating say about America's creditworthiness? It's really a subtle shift. S&P says a country rated AA has "a very strong capacity to meet its financial commitments.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's raised its corporate credit rating on General Motors Co by two notches Thursday, saying the automaker's new labor contract would allow for continued profitability and cash generation in North America. The ratings service revised upward its credit rating on GM to BB+ from BB- and also raised its rating outlook to "stable" from "positive. " The upgrade comes a day after the United Auto Workers union ratified a new four-year labor contract with GM, the first such deal for the top U.S. automaker since its 2009 bankruptcy.

Regarding the "pain" Leonard Klady felt when the Samuel Goldwyn Co. dared to appropriate exactly eight words from a review he'd written of their film "Ping Pong" and used them as part of their advertising promotion, I sympathize with him ("Rolling the Credits--and Quotes," Sept. 6). Now try to imagine the pain felt by countless screenwriters over the years when an entire 120 pages of their words go uncredited in a movie review--a few of which, ironically, Klady himself may have been guilty of writing.

Fitch Ratings likes what it currently sees in Ford Motor Co., upgrading the automaker's credit rating Tuesday to investment grade from its long-held junk status. Determining the Dearborn, Mich., giant to now have “sufficient financial flexibility,” the ratings agency boosted Ford's rating to BBB-minus from BB-plus. Fitch said it “believes that the work that has been accomplished has put the company in a solid position to withstand the significant cyclical and secular pressures faced by the global auto industry.” Ford, now the second-largest automaker in the U.S., maneuvered itself out of a near-collapse in 2006.

WASHINGTON - A failure by Congress to raise the debt limit "in a timely manner" could lead to a downgrade of the nation's AAA credit rating, Fitch Ratings said Tuesday. Republicans want major government spending cuts in exchange for a debt-limit increase. But Fitch, one of three major credit-rating companies, said the debt ceiling should not be used to force a deficit-reduction plan. "In Fitch's opinion, the debt ceiling is an ineffective and potentially dangerous mechanism for enforcing fiscal discipline," the company said.

Credit-rating companies in the United States are beset by shortcomings, failing to act quickly enough to issue downgrades and not properly documenting ratings decisions, the Securities and Exchange Commission said in a report. The SEC said Thursday that the country's largest credit-rating firms — Standard & Poor's Corp., Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings — did not follow their own policies in issuing ratings and failed to accurately document their decisions. This was the second report the SEC has issued about ratings firms, a responsibility the agency inherited under the Dodd-Frank financial reform act. The report evaluated the performance of rating companies from August 2010 through September 2011.

In case anyone had forgotten, Moody's Investors Service issued a stark reminder Tuesday that the federal government is speeding headlong toward a political and financial cliff. On Jan. 1, a number of temporary tax cuts are due to expire just as new spending restraints kick in, pulling hundreds of billions of dollars out of the U.S. economy and potentially triggering another recession. At the same time, Washington is expected to reach the limit of its borrowing authority, necessitating another increase in its debt limit.

WASHINGTON — Moody's Investor Services warned that it probably would downgrade the Aaa credit rating of the U.S. if government officials don't deal with the nation's debt problems. The credit rating firm said negotiations between Congress and the White House on the nation's 2013 budget and a decision on reducing the high ratio of debt to gross domestic product will be key to acting on its top credit rating. "If those negotiations lead to specific policies that produce a stabilization and then downward trend in the ratio of federal debt to GDP over the medium term, the rating will likely be affirmed and the outlook returned to stable," Moody's said.

Neither side in the contentious presidential race has been immune to  spinning reality in its direction, but it is the Republican vice presidential nominee - Rep. Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin - who seems particularly averse to admitting when the facts don't line up the way he wants them to. The Atlantic's James Fallows suggested in an essay over the weekend a couple of reasons why Ryan has taken such a flogging in the media for offering “selectively...

Moody's Investors Service slashed the credit ratings of more than a dozen giant global banks amid worries that Europe's economic turmoil could slow both profit and growth. The downgrades, announced after the close of U.S. financial markets Thursday, included Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley, Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. The move came as the 15 banks singled out by Moody's try to navigate through the European debt crisis, which could have a major effect on their trading businesses.

The contracts were flying out of AIG Financial Products. Hardly anyone outside Wall Street had ever heard of credit-default swaps, but by early 2005 investment banks were snapping them up to insure all kinds of deals in case of default, fueling one of the great financial booms in U.S. history. During twice-monthly conference calls that originated from the company's headquarters in Wilton, Conn.